Kindergarten funding the latest government debacle
Wednesday, 01 September 2010 14:01
The LNP has conducted a vigorous campaign against a new funding model for kindergartens that would see huge reductions in State government support for kindergartens and dramatic increases in fees.
Click here to read my latest speech to Parliament Click here to read Questions in Estimates Sitting Click here to read response to Estimates
In response to pressure, the government announced that it would make one-off payments to kindergartens in the 2011 year to offset the funding cuts.
Quite bizarrely, on the eve of a federal election, the State government has circulated a letter through the C&K organisation to parents whose children attend community kindergartens, claiming that they have in fact dramatically backflipped and will not cut funding to individual kindergartens prior to 2014.
Interestingly the government’s website contains no announcement. The Minister put out no press release and the letter circulated to parents is not signed by the Minister responsible (Education Minister Wilson) but by an official of the Office of Early Childhood Education.
What on earth is going on with kindergarten funding?
The latest letter is tantamount to an admission that the new funding model has failed. I would ask then, why not revisit the model rather than have some unfunded, poorly explained system of one-off payments to keep kindergartens afloat throughout the forward estimates?
It is only a few weeks since the State budget was examined in Estimates Committee and there certainly was no apparent additional funding of this type for kindergartens and I suggest readers check the Minister’s answers above.
It is apparent even from the government’s own statements that their new system of funding is fatally flawed and that one-off payments provided in amounts and by mechanisms that are yet to even be determined, are simply a “stay of execution” for many community kindergartens.
The latest letter to parents, not signed by the Minister, not announced by the Minister, and not supported publicly by the government, appears to have all the hallmarks of an effort to placate community anger at a funding system that is a disaster for community kindergartens.
I call on the Education Minister to immediately affirm whether or not the government does stand behind a commitment that all community kindergartens will maintain the same level of funding plus indexation until 2014 and what additional funding the government is proposing to meet these extra payments to kindergartens and what part of the budget will be diverted for this purpose.
This has got to be one of the most amazing backflips yet seen where a major funding commitment is signed off to kindergarten parents on government letterhead by an official of the Office of Early Childhood Education but is not supported by an announcement from the Minister or a budget amount allocated.
Community kindergartens and parents of children would be right to treat the latest letter with great scepticism until such time as the Minister and Cabinet commit to the increased funding and actually allocate the millions of dollars that would be required to maintain kindergarten funding levels.
The sector is now even more confused and demands urgent clarification.. Click here to read the letter the government is circulating.